Iran, Israel trade air attacks as conflict enters second week
Israel has launched strikes on dozens of targets in Iran, including missile production sites, and Iran fired a barrage of missiles that hit near industrial facilities in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, as the conflict between the two sides entered its second week.
An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed on Friday morning following an Israeli strike in Tehran, according to the Israeli public broadcaster Kan. The news followed reports from the Iranian media saying that a residential building in the capital's central Gisha district was hit by a drone strike.
The identity of the scientist was not immediately clear. Israel has killed several nuclear scientists since it started attacking Iran on June 13.
A hospital in Tehran was hit in a separate Israeli missile strike, the third such medical facility damaged in the past eight days, Iran's health ministry was quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) as saying.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the hospital strike, but six ambulances were damaged, the ministry said.
Despite the attacks, thousands of Iranians took to the streets of Tehran following Friday prayers to denounce Israel and the US for the deadly attacks in the country.
In the northwestern province of Kermanshah, a medical clinic was also hit, leaving it completely damaged, according to Press TV.
Both Iran and Israel have been exchanging allegations of targeting medical facilities, which is prohibited by international humanitarian law.
In a statement, Israel's Defence Minister Israeli Katz said he has instructed the military to intensify attacks on 'symbols of the regime' in Tehran, aiming to destabilise it.
'We must strike at all the symbols of the regime and the mechanisms of oppression of the population, such as the Basij [militia], and the regime's power base, such as the Revolutionary Guard,' Katz said.
Earlier on Friday, at least seven people were lightly injured after Iranian missile strikes hit Beersheba, the largest city in the Negev desert in southern Israel, according to Israeli media.
The attack temporarily shut the city's central rail station and damaged several buildings including the Microsoft office located inside a technology park, which is also near an Israeli army military telecommunications branch.
'The south of Israel is more sparsely populated, and the one missile that we could see landed before the beginning of business hours, so there were no people in the offices, presumably,' Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan said.
Against the backdrop of deadly exchanges, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in the Swiss capital, Geneva, ahead of a meeting with his French, German, British and European Union counterparts.
He will also address the United Nations Human Rights Council, the body's spokesperson said.
In an interview with an Iranian TV station, Araghchi said that as long as attacks on Iran do not stop, 'there will be no place for diplomacy and dialogue'.
Ahead of the talks, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the only way to end the conflict is for Israel to stop its air attacks.
'We have always pursued peace and stability,' he said in a statement cited in Iranian media on Friday.
Foad Izadi, professor of international relations at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera that it was clear that Araghchi was not prepared to hold any negotiations while Israeli strikes were continuing.
'When you negotiate, it's give and take,' he said. 'Iran cannot engage in that style of give and take when we have bombs falling' on Tehran and other parts of the country.
Still, Araghchi's presence in Geneva also sends out a message 'that they're not closing the door to the possibility of diplomacy,' said Al Jazeera's Tohid Asadi, who is reporting from Tehran.
Meanwhile, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported that Ali Shamkhani, a close adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was seriously wounded in an Israeli attack a week ago, was now in stable condition after round-the-clock efforts of doctors.
'I am alive and ready to sacrifice myself,' Tasnim quoted Shamkani as saying in a message.
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